Trivia for
"Home Improvement" (1991) More at IMDb Pro »

• The "Tool Time" audience is the actual live studio audience.
  
  
• When the show went into syndication in 1995, the producers chose to film a new episode to kick-off the syndicated episodes, a first for a network series. Tim Allen and Patricia Richardson filmed part of the episode at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, Calif., where their characters had a race, driving tanks on a mapped out course. Many Marines of 1st Tank Battalion were then invited to the studios in Los Angeles to watch the filming of the rest of the episode live from the studio audience.
  
  
• While taping some episodes of Tool Time, Tim sometimes asks an unseen character, Klaus, to play music for Tool Time segments. 'Klaus Landsberg' worked in the sound department on "Home Improvement".
  
  

• In the series finale, Heidi announces she is pregnant just before the last Tool Time show. Debbe Dunning was pregnant with her second child, which is just beginning to show.
  
  
• Colleges and universities in Michigan sent star 'Tim Allen' sweaters and T-shirts to wear on the air, and he did.
  
  
• Binford Tools, the company that sponsors the Tool Time show, is named after a friend of the family of one of the producers.
  
  
• There is a running gag regarding the Taylor's neighbor, Wilson; his face is always concealed from about the nose down (except in one episode where the top half of his face is covered with paper mache). In most episodes, Wilson was being shot from behind a fence, but in later episodes where he got out more often, camera shots, actor movements, and prop placements were carefully orchestrated so that his full face was not revealed. In fact, during all the curtain calls for the show (except the series finale curtain call, where his entire face was shown), actor Earl Hindman, who played Wilson, would bring a miniature picket fence to hold in front of his face so that it would remain hidden from view.
  
  
• The character Wilson is based on 'Tim Allen''s childhood memories of when he was too short to see over a fence, and was therefore unable to see his neighbor.
  
  
• Originally, actress Frances Fisher was cast as Jill Taylor. During the filming of the pilot, audiences reacted poorly, saying that she made the character of Jill whiney and desperate. She was replaced with Patricia Richardson four days before the pilot episode was taped.
  
  
• Richard Karn's wife, Tudi Roche, made five appearances on the show as Jill's sister Carrie.
  
  
• The full name of Carrie, Jill's sister, was Carole Sabrina Patterson.
  
  
• The full names of the Taylor boys were Bradley Michael Taylor and Randall William Taylor, and Marcus Jason Taylor. In the episode where Brad & Randy write a fake letter, Brad calls him "Marcus" and although Mark's middle name isn't mentioned directly during the series, in one post-finale interview Tim said Mark's middle name was Jason.
  
  
• The label "WLS" was frequently used to cover up real corporate logos. WLS is the Chicago affiliate of ABC.
  
  
• While meeting with Bud Harper, Tim is told "...Heidi tested better than Santa Claus." Tim Allen played Santa Claus in The Santa Clause (1994).
  
  
• As a running gag, whenever Tim enters the basement, he always bangs his head on a large pipe hanging overhead.
  
  
• Tim has five brothers (Rick, Steve, John, Marty, and Geoff) and Jill has four sisters (Carrie, Robin, Tracy, and Linda).
  
  
• The character 'Tim Taylor' was ranked #20 in TV Guide's list of the "50 Greatest TV Dads of All Time" (20 June 2004 issue).
  
  
• In the show the oldest brother, Brad is 13 months older than the second brother, Randy. However, in reality, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, who played Randy, is older by a month and a day than Zachery Ty Bryan, who played his older brother.
  
  
• In Germany, the series' title is "Hör mal wer da hämmert" means "Listen Who's Hammering", an allusion to the German title of the movie "Look Who's Talking".
  
  
• Stephen Tobolowsky was the original choice to play Al Borland; but due to a commitment to a film that Tobolowsky was acting in, Richard Karn got the part of Al after filming four episodes.
  
  
• Ashley Judd auditioned for and won the role of Lisa the Tool Girl. However, her agent urged her to pursue movies instead of a television career, and she pulled out days before the original pilot was to be taped, resulting in the casting of Pamela Anderson. The last-minute change necessitated alterations to the original script, in which Lisa was a major character; she was a college student majoring in psychology who acted as a stand-in for Jill on the Tool Time set.
  
  
• The show was originally conceived under the name "Hammer Time", after the show Tim would host. Prior to filming the pilot, Tim's show was re-named "Tool Time" to avoid confusion with M.C. Hammer. Consequently, the show was re-named "Home Improvement" because the creators decided against naming the show after the show-within the show, to avoid confusing viewers.
  
  
• In one episode, Wilson says his full name is "Wilson W. Wilson, Jr." The middle W also stands for "Wilson".
  
  
• Al's name was originally going to be Glenn.
  
  
• 1998's "Adios" episode was made for the purpose of writing Randy out of the show, as Jonathan Taylor Thomas no longer wished to appear in the series.
  
  
• A Super Nintendo video game was based on the television series. As part of the game's gimmick, the majority of the instruction manual was blanked out with the words "REAL MEN DON'T NEED INSTRUCTIONS." The game was only loosely based on the show, and featured Tim fighting through various television sets in the Tool Time studio, doing battle with such foes as men dressed up like dinosaurs.
  
  

Related Links